Agile in the Bathtub
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The document summarizes an Agile coaching engagement at a luxury bathtub manufacturer in Italy. The company was experiencing delays, poor quality, and overload. Through interviews and process mapping, key issues were identified including unrealistic planning, approval delays, and frequent changes. Initial steps included educating managers on Agile principles and visualizing the development process on a board. This exposed issues like queues and helped accelerate some projects. Daily stand-ups and retrospectives helped improve collaboration and focus on problems. Metrics were tracked and WIP limits introduced to further improve flow. As a result, cycle times decreased by 20-50% across development phases.
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Agile in the Bathtub
- 1. Agile in the Bathtub Gaetano Mazzanti @mgaewsj Agile42 Gama-Tech
- 2. “too many things to do” “we are too slow” “poor quality” sounds familiar?
- 3. 18 months ago “I would like to coach Agile & Lean in an non- software context”
- 4. on May 2011 I got a call “we need help”
- 5. May 2011 “we are too slow” “poor quality” “too many things to do” “engineers! those lazy ineffective slackers”
- 6. products: luxury hydromassage bathtubs and showers, italian market leader org & process: traditional top-down org, phase-gate process, rigidly defined procedures focus: cutting costs, downsizing, outsourcing
- 10. the challenge Agile & Lean coaching in an non-software context “let’s try it!”
- 11. step I who, what, how... ... and why :)
- 12. assessment interviews + Draw Your Process + pre-mortem retro
- 15. dot voting critical steps
- 16. draw your process most critical steps feasibility (especially determining costs and schedule) late product modifications product concept phase (too long, vague inputs)
- 17. pre-mortem retro
- 18. pre-mortem outcome optimistic planning delays in approvals continuous changes in priorities people moved to different projects projects ‘forgotten’ in a dormant state specs change, even late in the project production costs higher than expected
- 19. summing it up most operational issues somewhat known some dismissed as irrelevant, some simply not addressed for the time being dispirited employees management caught completely off-guard by reported lack of transparency and communication and by employee’s demotivation
- 20. step II beginning the transition
- 21. timeline !
- 22. active learning “we want prescriptions not principles” Agile & Lean Values interactions, communication, self-organization queues, WIP limits initial misunderstandings and annoyance by people “multitasking is a used to being told just natural and effective what to do approach to address overload” (!)
- 23. forced managers to read this book
- 24. mixed feelings enthusiasm for the possible upcoming (r)evolution skepticism about the chances to really change anything
- 25. step III Agile & Lean for Product Development
- 26. single project vs project portfolio
- 27. initial goals map the real process visualize all ongoing activities expose dysfunctions measure and analyze data
- 28. a perfect recipe for failure Development/ Concept Production Prototyping CKP CKP CKP CKP CKP I II III IV V DRW DRW DRW I II III features, cost and shipment date set here Involved Depts: Engineering, Operations, Quality Control, Test Lab
- 29. work-item type analysis project typical average size duration delay (months) (months) small 6-9 2-3 medium 9-12 3-6 large 12-18 6-9 small modifications / / each project leader is in charge of multiple projects
- 30. slip chart 4#May' expected completion date 3#Apr' 3#Mar' 1#Feb' 1#Jan' 1#Dec' 31#Oct' 30#Sep' 30#Aug' 30#Jul' 1#Jul' 1#Aug' 1#Sep' 1#Oct' 1#Nov' 1#Dec'
- 31. demand analysis new product concepts recurring events (e.g. exhibitions) sales opportunities difficult to predict, typically take priority over any other project
- 32. time for a board!
- 33. our first try color = size S M L
- 34. the magic of visualizing capacity demand waiting for CKPIII approval initial design, planning, outsourcing, mold design, etc.
- 35. immediate action/wins projects reviewed in terms of business priority, cost of delay, risk and complexity some projects stopped; others accelerated and moved quickly to CKP III
- 36. one week later
- 37. we used this board for three weeks to understand which kind of information we could get from it we started tracking time information to collect (partial) cycle time data
- 38. some issues with our board overloading and queues exposed but only partially prevented priorities still ‘suggested’ by management with no objective selection criteria project ownership changes during the project life, this was not visible on the board
- 39. time for daily standups and weekly retrospectives
- 40. standups & retros initially, engineers found these activities useless and boring standups were too long and repetitious as they were used just to report status to a manager so we changed approach and started focusing only on highlighting problems and collaboratively decide what to do
- 41. the path to a new board assign value and priorities to projects based on business value, cost of delay, due dates, etc. define and set WIP limits (“wow!”) pull approach to select and move forward projects policies to rule transitions from one state to another define relevant data to represent on cards to help in taking decisions and defining further policies
- 42. a new board color = project leader
- 43. !
- 44. flow
- 45. reached WIP limit !
- 46. WIP limits each project leader is in charge of multiple projects at a given time initially assigned WIP = 1 to each project but this was not very useful project characteristics including size, cardinality and parameters like machining or forming complexity were then used to weigh WIP (defined by engineers...) this resulted in each project inducing 0,2 to 2 in terms of WIP specific WIP limits have been set for resources (mostly hardware and used also for standard production) like molding machines, test lab and final prototyping some of these limits are not constant but may vary in time as they have to look ahead to take into account standard production needs and to anticipate the load induced by projects in progress whenever WIP limits are reached, a project is tagged with a blue square symbol and put on hold until resources are available (waiting time is measured)
- 47. WIP limits
- 48. WIP limits ][ ] ][
- 49. too many columns? we tried multiple simpler boards it did not work (people rejected it) reality is complex, better to see it clearly
- 50. metrics used (sub)cycle time active vs. idle time cumulated WIP by project leader per project phase (to check perceived vs measured overburden)
- 51. decreased (sub)cycle time Development/ Concept Production Prototyping CKP CKP CKP CKP CKP I II III IV V DRW DRW DRW I II III -50% -30% -20% -25%
- 52. sm M 0.50$ 1.00$ 1.50$ 2.00$ 2.50$ 3.00$ ay 0.50$ 1.00$ 1.50$ 2.00$ 2.50$ 3.00$ +1 Jul+10$ Aug+10$ Ju $ n+ Ju $ 10 l+1 0 0 al lp Sep+10$ Au $ g+ Oct+10$ 10 Se $ ro p+ Nov+10$ j 10 Oc $ Dec+10$ t+1 No 0$ ec Jan+11$ v+ 1 De 0$ Feb+11$ c+ 10 ts Mar+11$ Ja $ n+ 11 DRW$I$ Apr+11$ Fe $ DRW$III$ b+ 1 May+11$ M 1$ ar +1 1 Jun+11$ Ap $ r+1 Jul+11$ M 1$ ay +1 Aug+11$ 1$ LCL$ avg$ UCL$ LCL$ avg$ UCL$ DRW$III$ DRW$I$ 0.40$ 0.60$ 0.80$ 1.00$ 1.20$ 1.40$ 1.60$ 1.80$ 1.00$ 1.20$ 1.40$ 1.60$ 1.80$ 2.00$ Sep,10$ Jun,10$ Oct,10$ Jul,10$ Nov,10$ Aug,10$ Dec,10$ Sep,10$ before... Jan,11$ Feb,11$ Oct,10$ Mar,11$ Nov,10$ Apr,11$ Dec,10$ May,11$ Jun,11$ Jan,11$ Jul,11$ Feb,11$ CKP$IV$ DRW$II$ Aug,11$ Mar,11$ Sep,11$ Apr,11$ Oct,11$ May,11$ Nov,11$ Dec,11$ Jun,11$ LCL$ avg$ LCL$ avg$ UCL$ UCL$ CKP$IV$ DRW$II$
- 53. ec ts roj sm al lp ...after DRW$I$ DRW$II$ 3.00$ 2.00$ 1.80$ 2.50$ avg$ 1.60$ avg$ 2.00$ 1.40$ LCL$ LCL$ 1.50$ 1.20$ UCL$ UCL$ 1.00$ 1.00$ pre$avg$ pre$avg$ 0.80$ DRW$I$ DRW$II$ 0.50$ 0.60$ $ $ 1$ $ $ 2$ $ $ 1$ $ $ $ $ 2$ $ 2$ 2$ 2$ 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 12 12 12 t+1 +1 t,1 +1 ,1 r+1 r,1 g+ p+ v+ c+ g, p, v, c, n, b+ b, n ar ar Oc Oc Ap Ap De De No No Au Au Se Ja Se Ja Fe Fe M M DRW$III$ CKP$IV$ 3.00$ 1.60$ 2.50$ 1.40$ avg$ avg$ 1.20$ 2.00$ LCL$ LCL$ 1.00$ UCL$ 1.50$ UCL$ 0.80$ pre$avg$ pre$avg$ 1.00$ 0.60$ CKP$IV$ DRW$III$ 0.50$ 0.40$ Oct,11$ Nov,11$ Dec,11$ Jan,12$ Feb,12$ Mar,12$ Apr,12$ $ 1$ $ $ $ $ 2$ 2$ 11 11 11 12 12 t+1 +1 r+1 p+ v+ c+ n+ b+ ar Oc Ap De No Se Ja Fe M previous range
- 54. extending Agile/Lean to other departments they asked for it :), but obviously they wanted just to “copy” the practices in marketing: iteration-based approach to prepare a product-launch (4 weeks) in sales: kanban board to visualize and optimize flow of sales activities retrospectives rocked again
- 55. achievements ings you do, how m any th eate” “it ’s not value you cr t how much bu better predictability for Small and Medium projects; reduced cycle times value + cost of delay based selection reduced overburden engineers are more engaged and efficien cies is motivated delays and in g fast” “rem oving han ju st goin impo rtant t more
- 56. differences with sw teams no pursuing of technical excellence engineers feeling and acting as individuals. they did not feel they were part of a team. they had their own independent goals and were focused just on them note: standups and retrospectives helped a lot in providing a team-forming glue no “works on my machine” syndrome
- 57. open challenges people are inclined to rest on their laurels and to stop pursuing continuous improvement lead time (concept to cash) is still too long economy in Italy has worsened, the company has a new Managing Director, still not clear what’s going to happen
- 58. in closing Agile+Lean in non-software context yes!
- 59. on December 2011 I got another call “we need help” I am doing it again: currently working with a Power Transmission company “look ma, no software!” to be continued...
- 60. Gaetano Mazzanti @mgaewsj Agile42 Gama-Tech